A Content Delivery Network (CDN) can dramatically improve your website's speed by serving content from servers closer to your visitors. But is it right for your business?
What is a CDN?
A CDN is a network of servers distributed globally that cache and serve your website's static content (images, CSS, JavaScript) from locations near your visitors.
How CDNs Improve Speed
- Reduced latency: Content served from nearby servers
- Decreased server load: Origin server handles fewer requests
- Improved availability: If one server fails, others take over
- DDoS protection: Traffic distributed across network
Do You Need a CDN?
You Probably Need One If:
- Your audience is geographically distributed
- You have high traffic volumes
- Your site has lots of static content
- Speed is critical for conversions
You Might Not Need One If:
- Your audience is purely local
- Your hosting is already fast and nearby
- You have very low traffic
Popular CDN Options
Cloudflare (Recommended for Most)
- Free tier available
- Easy setup
- Includes security features
- Good performance
AWS CloudFront
- Pay-per-use pricing
- Great for AWS users
- Highly configurable
Fastly
- Real-time purging
- Edge computing capabilities
- Enterprise-focused
CDN Setup Basics
- Sign up with a CDN provider
- Add your domain
- Update DNS to point to CDN
- Configure caching rules
- Test and monitor
CDN Best Practices
- Set appropriate cache TTLs
- Use cache busting for updated assets
- Enable compression (gzip/Brotli)
- Configure proper cache headers
- Monitor hit/miss ratios
Related: Website Speed Optimization Guide
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